Mnemosyne — Classical Greek Myth Library

After the Titans were overcome and shut in Tartarus, and the Hundred-Handers appointed their guards, the three victorious brothers cast lots for the sovereignty of the cosmos (Apollodorus). To Zeus was allotted the dominion of the sky, to Poseidon the dominion of the sea, and to Pluto (Hades) the dominion in Hades. The Homeric account, spoken in anger by Poseidon to Iris when Zeus orders him off the battlefield at Troy, preserves the same division as an ancient settlement among equals. Poseidon declares that three brethren were begotten of Cronos and born of Rhea—Zeus, himself, and Hades lord of the dead below. In threefold wise all things were divided, and unto each was apportioned his own domain. When the lots were shaken, Poseidon won for his portion the grey sea to be his habitation forever; Hades won the murky darkness; Zeus won the broad heaven amid the air and the clouds. But the earth and high Olympus remain yet common to all three. Therefore Poseidon refuses to walk after Zeus’s will as if he were a lesser being: each has his third portion; earth and Olympus are shared. Hesiod’s complementary close to the succession wars is that when the blessed gods had finished their toil against the Titans, they pressed far-seeing Olympian Zeus to reign and to rule over them, by Earth’s prompting, and he divided their dignities amongst them. Hesiod does not stage the shaking of lots; the Homeric–Apollodorean lots tradition is the clearest classical statement of the triple partition and of the shared status of earth and Olympus. Together these accounts fix the political map of the classical cosmos after the theogonic wars: sky to Zeus, sea to Poseidon, underworld gloom to Hades, with the living earth and the gods’ mountain still held in common.